Biggest food stamp fraud bust in U.S history!!!!

[Rudyo]

Maybe it was a Milwaukee thing. Ten gets you twenty!!!

Yessir! Still mad that I don't work with that girl anymore... I see it happen all the time around like BPs and other G-stations downtown

[megas30]

I read the article, but still don't exactly get how they were actually doing the fraud. Maybe it's because I also don't know exactly food stamps work. I assume they aren't actually stamps? Were they ever?

Someone please break this down for me.

See....i don't really know how they work either, but based on what i hear people say, this is my conclusion. The food stamps are restricted to food, clothing and shelter, like every day necessities. However, people want to spend them how they see fit, like rims, weed, etc. Here comes the food stamps sharks, whom might pay you $20 cash for say a $40 food stamp. They get the food stamp worth $40 and you get some cash without restriction.

[ßringer]

That would be funny if they spent like $20mil. That would put my cost/benefit lesson from economics to shame...lol.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the cost of the operation far exceeded the money saved from fraud.

We've seen it before in regards to the movements in some states to drug test those on public benefits in order to weed out drug users. In Missouri, the state spent $38,970 testing only 446 of the state's total base of recipients. Only 48 tested positive. In Arizona, 142,424 applicants submitted to the testing with only 3 people testing positive.

The costs for these types of programs have thus far proven to be far more costly than the costs of maintaining the program as a whole.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/201...esting-states/

And that's just for simple drug screening where you're employing a few labs with minimal employees to do your testing. This was a federal task force involving the far more expensive use of local and state resources.

I'm pretty sure they'll never release the numbers on the cost of this operation.

[ßringer]

See....i don't really know how they work either, but based on what i hear people say, this is my conclusion. The food stamps are restricted to food, clothing and shelter, like every day necessities. However, people want to spend them how they see fit, like rims, weed, etc. Here comes the food stamps sharks, whom might pay you $20 cash for say a $40 food stamp. They get the food stamp worth $40 and you get some cash without restriction.

Food stamps can only be spent on food. That's literally it.

http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligible-food-items

EDIT : From what I understand, the rest of your post is pretty accurate regarding how some people trade them for cash. Most articles I've read have the same 50% value figure you've cited here, meaning $40 food stamps gets you $20 cash.

[LoadedWraps]

See....i don't really know how they work either, but based on what i hear people say, this is my conclusion. The food stamps are restricted to food, clothing and shelter, like every day necessities. However, people want to spend them how they see fit, like rims, weed, etc. Here comes the food stamps sharks, whom might pay you $20 cash for say a $40 food stamp. They get the food stamp worth $40 and you get some cash without restriction.

Exactly kind of how I thought it worked, which leads me to my original question - how the heck do you turn that into cash?? At the store I mean??

[megas30]

Exactly kind of how I thought it worked, which leads me to my original question - how the heck do you turn that into cash?? At the store I mean??

They (shop keepers) swiped the card, but didn't deliver the goods. Example, they swiped for an item which cost $40, but the item never exchanged hands. The card holder gets $20 cash from the shopkeeper, and the shop keeper gets to keep his/her item, all the while getting an additional$20 ($40 Food stamp-$20 paid out cash).

[LoadedWraps]

They (shop keepers) swiped the card, but didn't deliver the goods. Example, they swiped for an item which cost $40, but the item never exchanged hands. The card holder gets $20 cash from the shopkeeper, and the shop keeper gets to keep his/her item, all the while getting an additional$20 ($40 Food stamp-$20 paid out cash).

ok, but what I still don't get is, how does he get to give him 20$ cash if it's only food for food and stuff?

[megas30]

ok, but what I still don't get is, how does he get to give him 20$ cash if it's only food for food and stuff?

Remember the first version i told you? To simplify--the owner basically bought the food stamps for half the price or whatever deal they made. They just made it look like a transaction for goods, by running it through the business (swiping).

Keep in mind, the food stamps are still money---just restricted. The store owner does this for the customer, because they can take on risk of keeping restricted money by being more liquid. The owner of the of the food stamp, however, is not liquid and thus wants convert them into unrestricted cash; the price he/she pays for getting unrestricted cash is giving away half of it.

[Beercules]

[El-blanco]